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Quote from guanqi

feel free to tell me I suck, but do suggest me a way to progress (aside from gold farming for AH and paying real money which I don't find fun)

Reroll DH/Wiz. Melee are all gear > skill. Try some Inferno topics in Monk section, but you still need gear to use them (you 'should' be able to do act 2 with what you have), and tedious kiting between Immunity bubble cooldown on some packs.

1400 res all, 19k dps, 7.5k armor, haha, wow. That's just sick gear and you still get trashed by some elites? Day after I dinged my DH I done Act II skipping a total of 2 packs, then on half hour try on Act III and got 5 Valor stacks easily in that time, all with gear that dropped for me except blue 900 dps bow. You made me glad I didn't choose to stick to my monk. The disparity between gear required for melee compared to ranged is just staggering.

But don't give up, if Blizz keeps his promise of decreasing spike damage in Inferno, it's melee that should feel the most of this change.

Monk pet is about on par with Gargantuan (and dies just as much in Inferno), yet he can work without cooldown.

You might also didn't met 'right' elites. Wasps will kill them with projectiles, Fallen Overlords will smash them, Desert Golems will laught at them, male catman, axeman skeletons etc. They shouldn't last full minute, but if I can't take down at least half hp of elite before they die, I'm better with Fear.

On top of that, act III damage also skyrocket. I shelved WD for now for DH (day after I dinged him I'm already progressing in Act III, skipped maybe 3 packs out of 50 I encountered), and small (white/normal) Fallen grunts are hitting me for 50k per swing.

Quote from Delixo

I have to insist that you really should post this thread on the Official Blizzard Diablo forums in the Witch Doctor section.

I did it, on the Europe one at least, not sure if reposting on US would change anything. Getting Blue attention is extremely difficult.

Actually, they are real tiers, as in not only in look, but in possible affix range. Why do you think people say worthwhile stuff drops in a3-4 Inf?

Also, tier isn't wow acronym, it's word used in any 'hierarchy' system, like rts where it's used to describe how technological advanced unit/building is.

Well, Barb and Monks needs serious defensive gear to stand chance in Inferno. Wizzards also needs some so their Force Armor work after the nerf fix. If they made WD pets tankish enough when you load some hp and resist yourself, it could, in theory, allow to more bearable Inferno play for them. That would leave DH as only class that stacking vit/res is 100% pointless.

Although myself, I don't really see dogs working even after vit scaling. Sure, you can kill trash packs in less tedious way, but they will still get one shotted by elites that you have to kite for next 5 minutes, just this time with one less skill on your bar.

Quote from Kitsunebi

Negative, dualwielding IS viable in every aspect, due to the double crit gem, why don't people really get this

I was under impression gems put in weapon, apart from Thorns Topaz, works only when you are hitting with that weapon? Rubies increase one weapon damage, but don't seem to have effect on other one. IAS on weapon don't make other hit faster etc. Is crit gem exception to this?

Quote from Deadmau5

is there a special way to look for these type of belts on the AH ? Because i've looked through each preferred stat and couldn't find shit :(.

The standard AH filtering is hit or miss, sometimes it works, sometimes it derps on oranges. Safest bet is just to write unique name in search box.

People recommending pets or, just lol-worthy, Angry Chicken rune simply don't have a clue how Inferno looks like. First will die on one hit without doing damage, second will get you killed instantly. Recommending Burning Dogs is double silly, because even when they do work, their damage is negligible.

The only option is having backup nuke like Haunt or Dire Bats. And yes, we are gimped in current Inf playstyle of 'stack dps, if mob farts on you - die', with DH having so much better dps potential, and Wiz having way more survival with (even nerfed) Arcane Armor. If stacking resist would have noticeable effect, it would be different story. I don't enjoy Mario playstyle so just rerolled Monk so I can actually gear and survive better (I'm also clearing Butcher and Maghda runs with 12k dps monk double as fast than my Splinter-spam 25k Doctor).

Quote from italofoca

Farm the content is not "overgear" it's the way the game is balanced. Pet WD works more or less like melee builds (most barbs, some wizards). It has very low risk but it's very gear dependent.

I say it's broken balance, even more that gear you need to do is completely different/more specific than what is needed for splinter spam, and then you can use it only for overgeared content that doesn't drop anything that has value. Current design is, if you can kill things in later acts, you do it, otherwise you won't see upgrades. At least Barb that goes ape with 2h gets massive dps boost compared with s&b, while we are dropping our damage.

Pet build atm would need, armor, resist all, thorns, life regen. Now, thorns will never kill elites, and especially bosses, and pets melee scales with your damage, so add Intellect. That is very specific gear just for worthless (relatively) content. Given that WD itself seems more durable than dogs in Inferno, might as well just add vitality and tank yourself.

But kudos for people trying to make them work.

Anything that makes you happy I would say, have fun with skills when you still can. If you want general advice, you don't want more than one secondary nuke (Exception of Grasp of the Dead). Get a single target primary and aoe secondary, or aoe spam primary and single target secondary. And you may need more defensive cooldowns later than dogs that you explode.

Splinters remain the most efficient single nuke through entire game, you could swap to Spiders if you wish on this diff. Then Locust, Acid, Dire Bats and Zombie BEARS (stay clear from other) are good aoe secondaries.
Firebomb would work fine with Dire Bats, Haunt, Zombie Bears and Spirit Barrage (If you stack mana regen passives). Frogs are mixed bag, very high damage, but not really single or aoe ability.

For the Haunt vs Locust. Haunt is a single target dot that may jump with remaining duration to other mob once first is dead (it's not perfect though). Locust on other hoof, jumps every ~0,5 sec from mob to mob applying full strength and duration dot on them, clears whole packs of mobs near instantly. First one is great on champs and so-so on groups, second is so-so on champs and great on groups.

Also, it's conclusion that pet build work is far-fetched. Pets 'kinda' stay alive longer in content that you overgear by miles. None of people make it working in Inferno act II and beyond.

Damage reduction works by multiplying, Bad Medicine + Jungle Forti is (0.8 * 0.8 =) 64% damage taken (36% reduction). With Life Link it's (0.8 * 0.8 * 0.9 =) 57,6% damage taken (42.4% reduction). If BM and JF couldn't do enough, chances are LL won't help that much either. If you could take hits with those, I say Leaching Beast would help more by replenishing health and getting their own survival boost. Alas, pets die instantly in Inferno, so using other defensive CD is better.

On Healing Journey, see, it don't work like that from my glass cannon from Hell experience. While I did read about WD doing it for Inferno Azmodan to survive those bucking black pools first tick, pretty much any Inferno boss pass Act 1 will one shot you with their skills, so you have to dodge it, Spirit Walk through it, or proc Spirit Vessel. Butcher have 2 health wells to counter his aoe-chain. Using SW to heal it up leaves you dead meat if fire spawns badly or you don't dodge his 'get over here', on Diablo instead of healing up you can just use it to avoid fire nova or lightning cone after he teleports to you. But I didn't know it proc 3 times... does it mean the mana regen one regain 45% of mana?

Hex itself is incredible (Belial being susceptible is a surprise to me), the rank itself is to the rune working on skill. It boost bonus damage from 10% to 20%, which is nice, but nothing amazing.

Stinker poison damage depends on my damage, it's my pet, on my skillbar. I say, if it doesn't work, then it's a bug (will have to test it for sure though). Gargy actually is doing decent damage on his own, especially when enraged. I never really needed his stun but... having played monk and seen how much attacks from Diablo you can stop mid-way by good stun/blind, I might undervalued it.

My reasoning for slow is that if you can slow elite down for longer than actual cast time of Grasp, it's already payed for itself.

Pestilence rune isn't necessary, but it does get the job it's supposed to do, that is to spread near instantly. It's still very nice for big packs where it will take it's sweet time to apply to every mob, and even get lost if it jumps to far away one.

Blood Ritual and Spirit Attunment by itself never allowed me to comfortably cast Dire Bats as primary, they work nice in tandem. It's still not enough for the non-Dire bats though. I guess I could stack more mana regen and see how it work. They do work well by itself for 'occassional' batty though.

Having (too much) free time, I'd like to share my opinion on current WD skills and problems. Please note everything I wrote is only my opinion, it's not absolute truth, and your feelings may differ. I'm writing this from, I think the most populated wall, Inferno Act II experience.

To start, let me say, leveling Witch Doctor is incredibly fun. The amount of diffrent abilities and mix between pets, dots and direct damage made me change my build entirely each few levels. Splinters with Dire Bats, Spiders with Acid Pool, All-out pet build to tank for party, Zombie Bear spam. However, the later difficulty you play, the less options you get. At Hell, getting off any bats other than Dire becomes hard, Dogs uptime lessen, and as damage ramp up, you start understand value of being ranged. When you come in Inferno, you kiss your Gargantuan goodbye for good, and get used to 'kite everything' concept. With that, you shed your melee ability, keep only long range nukes, and load up every cc possible, just so you won't die too often, and later in act II, you pop it just to avoid getting killed from barely meeting a jumping/invisible mob. And for that, we have only one ability:

The prisoner of Spirit Realm.
There are few abilities that are incredibly powerful, but still that you can work w/o. You can make good build with no Splinters, you can kill mobs fine without Soul Siphon buff. However, you can not survive in Inferno without Spirit Walk. We don't have any choice in this regards, as this is only skill that will:
- Give you invulnerability
- Break Jail/Freeze
- Gain sprint at 50% bonus move speed
- Allows to 'safely' drop melee range spell like Mass Confusion or Soul Siphon
and as a bonus, regain huge chunk of your mana if runed this way. This is the only thing that allows us to survive one shotting mobs and escape from movement imparing elites. It also forces to take Spirit Vessel as passive to drop it's cooldown even more.
To fix to this would be to add another ability with similar features. You can find my idea below at Hex Chicken part, although, as said, in Inferno you would end up using both.


The Inferno Culling.
Everyone who gets to the Act II Inferno, sometimes earlier, knows that some abilities just flat out stop being usable due to change in the game pace. We are suffering of this badly, in two ways:
First, our pet part of class is made worthless. It makes me sad that Zombie Dogs, that are still adversited as Witch Doctor prime ability and protectors, are not holding up. Together with them, the Gargantuan, and whole pletheora of skill/passives dedicated for summoner (Devolution, Thorns, Sacrifice) becomes unusable as well. While simply buffing them further would solve it, it won't change...
Second problem, which is that we have great range of spells that require us to be in melee or medium range. Non-Dire bats, Zombie Charger, Toads, Acid Barf, Soul Siphon, Locust Swarm... In short, those abilities (should) work by having greater power than 'safe' long range ones, by inducting risk of standing close to mobs. That worked fine in earlier difficulty, when that 'risk' means 'lose some health'. When that risk becomes 'you're dead' in Inferno, those abilities are not being worth risk anymore, hence Splinter/Dire bats spam.
Now, I know you could load up defensive stats on all your gear, although I'm pesimistic that it will allow you take hits anyway. However, this will gimp your dps badly, making 'boosted' melee abilities point of doing higher dps moot, and having glass blowgun faring better. I'm not saying it's mob damage... but it's mob damage. I honestly can't find other way to make those skills usefull past meaningless difficulties. Please provide me to Inferno clearing (a2 and higher) WD that don't gear as pure nukers.
Remember that most kiting with darts is done with mobs off the actual screen, so that they can't utilize their Vortex, Jail and/or Teleport ability, and any pack that have 2 of those affixes has to be done this way or they will catch you with Spirit Walk cooldown down.
There is also using up Spirit Walk to use that one melee like ability safely, which works in 'deadrush' bear builds and to apply Soul Harvest, but on Act II, you can't really afford to waste cooldown of it in that way.


And now, for the actual skills and runes. I'm giving them rank based on, mostly, how the rune improves/work on skill, not the skill itself, that's in the Problem section.
C - Real crap/Why is this in game at all?/Need serious rework and/or buff
B - Nothing special, but does it job done, or could fit in some niche
A - Very good and/or fun, that is what majority runes should be
S - Overpow.. actually, not much powered, but... Overshadowing other abilities. It's so potent that makes other runes worthless in comparision, in most cases, it actually means it don't need nerf, but that skill itself needs buff/have it as baseline.

Poison Dart:
- Splinters: Turns PD into powerful 180% wd nuke, so good it basicly trumps all other options. Staggers better due to multi hit. I don't know mechanics excactly, but it may have three times more chance for proc effects. S
- Numbing Dart: The slow, while nice, is usually not enough to kite some enemies, especially if they have minons with them. Latest Blizz post is actually suprising, given I haven't really seen them in any build for Inferno, and by myself, the damage drop was too massive. Perhaps with slow 2h, but then the cast itself is slugish, I dunno... A
- Spined Dart: Regain 14 mana on hit isn't half bad, but since Splinters is so powerfull, it's usually better off using that, instead of weaving mana spells and worse filler. B
- Flaming Dart: Less damage that Splinters just for the sake of getting past Plagued mobs resistance, allows to hit moving foes if you are good at predicting movment, loses Bad Medicine synergy. It don't seem worth it, buffing it to Splinters 180% and more people might use it. A
- Snake to the Face: As fun as it might seem (from shooter pov), the chance and duration are not reliable at all against bosses/champs unless you stack ias. Then it's quite good keeping one foe stunlocked. Make it more balanced depending on weapon speed? B
Problems/fixing: Very potent, seen in pretty much every build that don't rely on Vision Quest. I would say (Splinters) to the point of being overused, as it's pretty much only WD spammable spell that does decent SINGLE target damage, so needed on champs and bosses. To make other options more valuable, make the dot effect stackable/rollable, so that every option is 140 wd per cast, otherwise Splinters wins in 99% of cases. By having a refreshing, not rollable dot, you are punishing fast weapons far too much for other options to be viable damage dealers.


Corpse Spiders (assuming all 4 spiders bites twice before death - 128% wd per cast):
- Leaping: First rune kills every further one. The damage for all spiders biting 8 times is 152%, which is inferior to Splinters. S
- Spider Queen: Absoule crap. It's a targetable aoe that does measly 16% wd per sec, it can't be used as primary damaging spell at all. To make worse, you can have only one at time. Should be (untargetable) pet/guardian that periodically spawn Leapings, maybe then it would be worth it (on other slot, you still need a nuke). C
- Widowmakers: 19 mana return in best scenario, suffers same as Spine dart, but worse because of nature of spiders. B
- Medusa: Like Numbing Dart, just much worse. Not only the slow is weakish, it isn't reliable at all for the chance of slow (~32% mob won't be slowed if he gets bitten by all four spiders on spawn) and the way is delivered (mobs run to you before spiders can bite). C
- Blazings: Buffs damage to 168% and changes it to fire, still worse than Splinters. B
Problems/Fixing: The spiders itself are great idea. It trades off ability to target one mob, for ability to throw them over obstacles/lower level/wallers/corners. The problem comes from fact they are inferior in damage to Splinters, and that is still in best case when they can bite all 8 times. Simply put, unless you have someone tanking mobs, the only options that work decentish is Leapings, anything else will just run away from them. When Dogs were tanky enough, they were kinda fun, now they are useless.
To fix, I would say give ALL of spiders ability to Leap, and redo Leaping Spiders completly, this skill is useless in any other form simply by mobs moving away. Furthermore, buff the weapon damage OR duration to allow spiders to bite 3 times each consistently.


Toads (130wd x 3 hits for 390% wd max):
- Explosive - simple buff to 169% wd (507% wd max) and change poison into fire damage. A
- Hugeness: Just as useless as Spider Queen. Can't eat any more powerful mobs. Takes away primary slot. Can't aim it. Make it guardian that will eat next non-elite add that would hit you (and knockback in case of elite) and you have decent defensive cc, otherwise Hex does it way better. C
- Rain: I'm in absolute love in this skill sound and animation. Rune itself changes ability drastically, and it's not half bad at all. B
- Addling: Add confuse to hits, it's incredibly good in any situation where you can use Frogs... problem is that you can't on Inferno. A
- Affinity: Waiting to 54 level to unlock rune that makes your PRIMARY spell (that you are supposed to use when you are low on resources in first place) is just crappy AND boring. The skill itself shouldn't cost that much considering risks you have to put in. C

Problem/fixing: I have to say, this skill generally is fun to use, randomness and clunky frog movement exploding on rocks is countered by awesome damage. That is, until you get to late Hell and Inferno. Since this skill require you to be in melee-medium range, in a world of one shots, it goes from interesting to absolutly worthless (except for Rain of Toads).
Unless the Inferno design changes (that is, that you can take some hits sometimes), it needs further range and faster frogs to be of any use there.


Fire Bomb
- Flash Fire: Assumming 7 enemies
85 + (85 * 0.85) + (85 * (0.85^2)) + (85 * (0.85^3)) + (85 * (0.85^4)) + (85 * (0.85^5)) + (85 * (0.85^6)) = 385% wd
Normal Firebomb would deal 595% wd in this case BUT only if mobs are packed together. The jumping change in mechanic makes it hit more spread targets, making it viable glyph. A
- Roll the Bones - Can hit targets that are behind initial landing place, decent. A
- Fire pit - Add 24% wd as a dot of floor. Pathetic damage that require mobs to be standing in place. Why would you want 24% dot when you can have 20% direct damage instantly over huge area (Ghost Bomb)? Need major buff to be of any use. C
- Pyrogeist - It attacks one target for 140% wd as a 3 sec dot. It already have problems keeping up with unruned Darts (100 direct + 40 as dot), but when you realize you can have only ONE spawned at same time, it renders skill completly useless. Having ability to cast multiples is required for this skill to work. The... thing... attacks aren't aoe anymore as well, so even with multiply copies possible, it would still need buff to the level of Splinters range.C
- Ghost bomb - Buffs standard version and makes it beautiful blue, great (only the 20% extra damage have further range, but it's enough) A
Problems/Fixing: The standard version is fine for aoe clearing (and crap for single target, so you need something extra for that). Needs rework on RtB, Pit and Pyro.


Grasp of the Dead
- Unbreakable Grasp: If movement speed debuffs works by multiplying, it doubles the slow provided bt skill (40% mv speed vs 20% glyphed). If by substraction, it's still incredibly good, as it buffs the most important part of skill. S
- Eels - buffs damage by 30% (tooltip changes on weapon speed, the faster the more, not sure if intended). It isn't dps ability per se, so don't see point. B
- Death is Life: Decent utility, especially to group, if not for terrible proc chance. At 5% it's just pointless for the small radius of this ability. Worthless until seriously buffed (20% minimum). C
- Desperate Grasp: If you want to gain more distance, get Unbrekable, otherwise casting animation screws you over. Make overlapping Grasps Immobilize targets for few seconds and then it might be usefull. B
- Rain of Corpses: Gives additional 50% damage on top on random nearby enemies, quite fun, but can't really drop better slow. A
Problems/Fixing - On Inferno, you are using this skill for kiting purposes, which leaves only UG as on option. Slow have to be 80% base for other runes to be usefull. Also, the cast recovery renders this skill useless if not preplaced. If a mob is chasing after you (leaperlike), stoping to cast it make mob hit you anyway, allow to cast in on move?


Firebats:
- Dire Bats: Holy Burning Bats, Batman! Buffs damage and allow skill to be used as long range nuke, even fly on other dungeon level, it's absolutly incredible. To the point of making all others useless... S
- Vamp Bats: Barbs got passive that gives them 3% life leach for everything, ask them how well it works in Inferno (answer - it doesn't). I can't even regen my life in Hell in this, healthbar is just not moving. C
- Plague Bats: 220% instant that fly over enemies in long range or 225% in small cone that require standing still and long windup, you do the math. It actualy have damage potential, but you won't have possibilty to stand still. B
- Hungry Bats: On paper looks good, in actual play, it is only slightly better against single targets, but absolutly not worth loosing range (and group clearing possibility) from Dire. B
- Cloud of Bats: Low range, decent damage, but let me know how standing in middle of enemy group works for you in Inferno. C
Problems/Fixing - Range and Mana cost. Nobody is using anything than Dire bats on Inferno, because it is impossible to stand so close and live, even more than some of skills require long casting. Hit and Run with Dires works way better. And because of mana cost, even if you could afford standing so close, channelling them require Vision quest or both Attunment and Blood Ritual. In fact, having both of those passives and a +10 mana per sec weapon didn't allow me to channel bats longer than 4-5 seconds. Either need serious range buffing or Inferno damage intake rebalanced, otherwise you won't see this skill used.


Haunt:
- Consuming Spirit: Don't scale with health, so becomes more and more obsolete the better your gear is. Make it 10-15% over entire duration and it may be worthwile. B
- Resentul: Makes this skill more of a nuke, decent damage, but to afford it mana wise... B
- Lingering: If you get situation where you leave Haunts unused, chance is you didn't need them in first place. Sure, the fact it clings onto you is nice, but it should be baked in basic. C
- Grasping: Weak slow, but still nice help against kiting elites. B
- Draining: Recovers mana cost and slightly more if it can work it's full duration. A
Problems/Fixing - The jumping ability is there to make this skill worthwile in more than elite/boss fights, but it's not working good enough. The animation of jump is too long, if you kill the target it was going to 'posses', the effect disappear completly. Works fine otherwise.


Locust Swarm (360wd/8sec = 45%wd per second):
- Pestilence: Instead of 1-1-1-1 (1-2-3-4 enemies), it spreads as 1-2-4-8 (1-3-7-15 enemies), faantastic. A
- Devouring Swarm: Superb mana regen if used on a big group allowing to cast high-mana nukes while dot does it's own work. A
- Cloud of Insects: Erm.. I don't see point of this at all. It buffs damage to 450% wd per cast, but with same dps, which is inferior (both dps and total damage done) to Searing, needs something better in this place. C
- Diseased Swarm: Extremly meh. If enemies are so low that cloud could finish them off, chances are Searing would just straight killed them. C
- Searing Locus: Buffs damage by 30% (58,5% per sec) and change it to fire, very good. A
Problems/Fixing - A DoT that is usefull for groups since it spread by itself, I absolutly loved this skill when I was leveling. Then comes inferno... and this skill require close range to apply, mhm... In anything past ActI, you must use Spirit Walk to apply it, and risk you will die by not having your only escape tool ready later.


Zombie Dogs:
- Rabid Dogs: Adds quite a bit damage, and gives great synergy with Bad Medicine, great. A
- Final Gift: Nice idea, but the chance is way too low. 60% of not getting health globe when 3 dogs die, on a 1 min cd, it's worthless. At 35-50% might be usefull, and that's only when health regain itself is usefull (one shots...) C
- Life Link: Boring passive, but buffs the 'defense' part of skill I guess. B
- Burning Dogs: The damage is way too small even when dogs run in huge pack of enemies, and have no synergies whatsover. C
- Leeching Beast: I was hyped when I finally unlocked it. And very disappointed after I tried. It could be very good rune, if pets would work. A
Problems/Fixing -
At Normal, I was like
At Nightmare, I was like
At Hell, I was like :|
At Inferno, I'm like （╯ಠ益ಠ）╯︵ ┻━┻
Absolutly horrid scaling, or lack of. This is a DEFENSIVE skill. Their lowish damage is fine, it allows them to finish stragglers and solo some very small mobs. But their survival is absolute crap, they got one shot by whiteys in inferno actI. I shouldn't need super gear to make them tanky. The skill role itself is for them to take hits, so that I can stay back and focus on doing more dps. If they fail at doing so, I'm much better taking another snare or other defensive cd (that does not care about my gear) instead. I'm very sad that iconic ability of Witch Doctor is not usable in endgame.


Horrify:
- Phobia: Longer duration, decent. A
- Stalker: Good idea, but way too weak run speed boost to be of any use except speedruns. You get more breathing room for getting that sligh longer Fear like above. B
- Face of Death: Larger Radius means you will fear that mob that is trying to hit you AND anything that follows it, and give enough time to drop snare. A
- Frightening Aspect: What? Even with bonus armor, I can't take single hit. You'd better be off taking bigger radius rather than trying to tank. Might be usefull if it helped survive something like Mortar fire or end boss abilites. C
- Ruthless Terror: It's boring, but I guess it works quite nice with something like Grave Injustice as mana regen skill. B
Problems/Fixing: While the skill itself is good, the fact you can't take single hit in Inferno, and this is cc that require melee range, make it questionable. It's still great against vortex/teleport enemies, but Face rune seem kinda mandatory to get it usable otherwise for anything more than one chasing you enemy.


Spirit Walk:
- Jaunt: 50% more duration of godly skill, nuff said. A
- Honored Guest: 30% mana regen on short cd makes it absolute incredible regen tool even in no-mana Splinter builds (for casting other cc's). S
- Umbral Shock: Mobs loose interest in your body when you cast it, and the damage+radius is very weak. C
- Severance: Why would you want to run INTO enemies? I can't take hits, remember? C
- Healing Journey: Even if healing was worthwile, 15% is just laughtable. 30% base and content that don't one shot, perhaps it could work. B
Problems/Fixing: Look at 'Prisoners of Spirit Realm' section.


Hex:
- Hedge Magic: Starts out amazing, don't scale at all. Just make it 10% heal baseline and it's golden, at least when you don't get one shot etc. A
- Jinx: 10% more damage, and changes Chicken into Pig. Works fine, but I'd rather have chickens :< B
- Angry Chicken: Joke rune. I have to say, it's incredibly funny turning into explosive chicken and headrush in mobs, especially in coop with friends. But it have zero practical value. Why does it loose defensive capability, all you gain is 15% movement speed? Make it break jail/freeze, blind nearby enemies for a while next to you, allow you to jump over walls and buff movement speed to 25% and you have something that can be used instead of Spirit Walk... j/k, you will end up using both. C
- Painful Transformation: Hex on elites works for about 2 seconds, so 72% wd over 12 seconds of skill is meh. B
- Unstable Form: A nice try to make skill viable on big groups rather than just champs. Its hard to pull off though. Need buff to radius to be useful. B
Problems/Fixing: Very nice ability, especially that it works on elites and it's castable on move, saved my flank many times from chasing elite. Chicken rune needs rework though.


Soul Harvest:
- Swallow your Soul: Very potent mana regain utility. A
- Siphon: Nice heal, if heals were usefull, should scale (10% per target). On lower diff it actually works as a decent defensive cd when cornered. A
- Languish: Don't see point, make them immobilize or at least 80% snare, otherwise most can catch up anyway. C
- Soul to Waste: Less tedious and makes it slighty safer to use. A
- Vengeful Spirit: Terrible damage requiring melee range, no thanks... C
Problems/Fixing: Even not scaling, this ability is incredibly powerful self-buff at max level. It goes from amazing to over-risky when you can't get into melee range at all though. Worhtless on boss fights with no adds, but for shear power on trash, I think it's fine.


Sacrifice:
- Black Blood: Slow last decent time, but is it worth runing... if explosion don't one shot group of mobs, skill itself isn't worth using. B
- Next of Kin: Gives you fuel for next cast instantly, pretty much only option since getting Dogs is hard already, especialy for bosses. It also gives that 'gambling' feel, like pulling machine slot lever when you explode them... might be only me though S
- Pride: Nice mana gain, but good luck making build with Sacrifice AND high mana nukes. B
- For the Master: Need scaling, guessing by amount healed, to 25% per dog. Not that heals are usefull atm. B
- Provoke the Pack: Damage buff is nice, but I'd rather have more exploding dogs or use Soul Siphon to buff Primary (Splinters that is) spam. Make it 10% per dog and it could see use... in Hell at best. B
Problems/fixing: It shares similar fate to dogs, if they get one shotted before you can position them, you can't get decent explosions. You need full build resolving around this , which could be fine, if it worked in Inferno. At this moment, it won't, so it's dead skill. Also since dogs are so hard to come, NoK is only viable rune for it.


Mass Confusion:
- Unstable Realm: 25% off CD, good. A
- Devolution: More Zombie Dogs! If they were good, this rune would be great. They aren't, so you are hurting yourself using it. B
- Mass Hysteria: Decreases chance of being one shotted by elite that didn't get charmed, required if you decide to use it in Inferno. A
- Paranoia: The additional damage is very, very nice. Too risky in Inferno though. A
- Mass Hallucination: Interesting effect, that's for sure. Damage is a bit low compared what you could do with Paranoia though (especially in multi). B
Problems/fixing: Overall good ability, but the melee range makes it very risky to get full potential.


Zombie Charger:
- Leperous Zombie: Laughtable dot, small mobs should be dead by this skills, elites you have to kite out of it. C
- Undeath: Only good on enemies that you can one shot. Just use Direbats. C
- Wave of Zombies: The hay is that? Why would you create rune that nerfs damage by 2/3, just so it changes to narrow cone? Even channeled bats are better. Also look to Zombie Bears. C
- Explosive Beast: The closest ability in game to Fireball. Except it explode on pebbles. But it's still better than previous runes. B
- Zombie Bears: Buff damages and add 2 more zombies to the sides. Can get 3 hits off if target is big enough.... read below S
Problems/Fixing: Whole tree needs serious rework. When you unlock this skill, you already have Dire Bats. And those Bats are way, way better than each of runes by both damage, range and not being limited by terrain. Zombies are so slow and range is pathetic. Why should I endanger myself if skill itself don't do more damage? Then you unlock final rune, and... it's just stupid. Runes are supposed to be about choice, yet Bears are three times better than any other mod. Sad part is, it's the only rune that makes this skill useful, for farming overgeared content that is (and bosses), since you will chain-die trying to use it in Inferno A2+. Leave Bears as is, buff rest tree to 300% wd, and it's still unusuable in higher diff due to design.


Spirit Barrage:
- The Spirit is Willing: Much cheaper mana cost, good I guess. A
- Well of Souls: Good on paper, but in game, those additional spirits won't hit if you have only one target, and for groups this skill is still useless. B
- Phantasm: Locust does same damage, but spreads way easier. This one is safer to use though. Buff duration a bit and it could work. B
- Phlebotomize: See: Vampiric Bats C
- Manitou: It shoots about 30 projectiles for a total of 840% wd. Seems good, but it's actually only 42% wd per second, it's single target, require medium to close range to hit (too close to kite safely), and some of his attacks miss anyway. Locust Swarm would outdps it on single target (and spread to rest), so does Haunt (48% per sec) and it can be put on many enemies. Needs major buff to be worth the slot C
Problems/Fixing: So, I can either pick mana-free Splinters, that I can spam all day, for 180% wd, or Spirit Barrage, that even runed for mana efficiecy will get me oom in seconds, for 190% wd, jeez, I wonder which to choose. Needs serious buff to damage to be worthwile, also look to Rush for Essence in passive section. In fact, if the damage was brough a bit lower (160% base) and mana cost nearly eliminated, it could as well work as primary.


Acid Cloud:
- Acid Rain: Huge range, sweet. A
- Lob Blob Bomb: Buff the 'dot' part so it's more effective vs bosses, and have fun animation too. Require mobs to stand in place, worked fine when pets could tank, don't work in Inferno with no tank. A
- Slow Burn: Only very slow mobs won't move from pool for so long. It's actually very similar role to LBB rune, with same problems, but not as fun. B
- Kiss of Death: Ok, apparantly, having skill go from targetable long range to melee is a POSITIVE in terms of runes, since for forcing you in melee range, you gain 10% damage on it, versus 30% of other runes that work similar. The animation of WD barfing Acid is great, but it needs serious buff. 30% as minimum, and perhaps more for having it harder to apply. C
- Corpse Bomb: It... works... well... Damage is fine, but... It's boring. It kills all the fun of ability. You click, it explodes, end. No dot, no glowing slime, no barfing, no huge area covered in acid. In fact, unless you can make LBB slime on boss for whole 5 seconds, this ability will do more damage. Nerf damage slightly to 150% wd, make enemies killed by it explode for 50% wd and chain explode if that kill another enemy and it would be sweet group killing skill, much closer to Corpse Explosion than this. B
Problems/fixing: Apart from some work with runes, skill is fine.


Wall of Zombies:
- Barricade: More Width means more places where you can use it to block mobs. A
- Unrelenting Grip: Mobs do walk next to wall, which could be useful... but if you can't block them entirely, or trap them inside wall, you are doing it wrong. C
- Creepers: I guess it works like it reads. B
- Pile On: Huge damage, but you loose cc and it's damn hard to aim. I can see it working though, if Grave Injustice is fixed (it's not working on it atm). B
- Dead Rush: Changes Wall more to... explosion, centered on yourself. Go run in group of mobs in Inferno, see how it works for you. Damage is fine, but at least knockback must be added so it still can act as backup cc. C
Problems/fixing: Working fine, even more if you immobilize bigger enemies by casting it ON them (I take it's intented, since wallers can do same to you).


Gargantuan:
- Humongoid: Nice damaging cleave for group clearing. B
- Restless Giant: Real monster when it activates, and internal cd is reset when you resummon Giant. A
- Wrathful Protector: 15 seconds, what? And apart from knockback, Restess will do way better when enraged. Make it 30 seconds so that Grave Injustice build can utilise it at least. C
- Big Stinker: Nice damage and synergy with Bad Medicine. A
- Bruiser: Stun is quite short against elites, but it does work. B
Problems/fixing: Similar to dogs, but less severe UNTIL Inferno. He works as fine tank up to Hell, then gets killed by 3 hits. I'm not joking, in actII, I took all hp increase/bad medicine/jungle forti, he lost a 'duel' to single female catman. I don't even have to test him against champions, worthless.


Big Bad Voodoo:
- Jungle Drums: 50% increase of duration, decent if you can sit that long in one place. B
- Rain Dance: Allows you to spam mana-intensive skills but, why it doesn't increase other classes resources as well? Completly worthless due to: B
- Slam Dance: 30% damage to you AND group, sick. S
- Ghost Trance: Good part, it scales. Bad part, healing in Inferno is useless for most part, especially that it's spike damage that kills you. Make it Cheat Death ability (ends when it's succesful before full duration) or healing could be slightly (7,5% per sec) buffed. B
- Boogie Man: Good idea to get more pet resummon, bad implementation. Think about it, when would you need your dogs (especially in Sac build)? On champion packs of course. What this skill help in that regards? Nothing, and even less. You don't want to blow your 120 sec CD on trash mobs, just so you can be even more vulnerable to elites. Fix? Make it SPAWN dogs with ratio 1 per 3 seconds (6 dogs total). That way, you have beautiful synergy for Sac, where you can use it just when you need the dogs the most. C
Problems/Fixing: It's not moving. That's huge problem for any pack you have to kite, and you have to kite everything in this game, that includes tank when their defensive CD runs out. That makes the 30 sec rune worthless, as you want to get as much as you can from short window you can stand inside (Slam). Make the Fetish dance on your head perhaps?


Fetish Army:
- Fetish Ambush: Damage is nice, standing in middle of mobs not so nice, and you want them for champions, which standing around is even less healthy. C
- Devoted Following: Shorter CD for longer uptime, not bad. A
- Legion of Daggers: Most used rune since it gives you more 'tanks'. A
- Tiki Torchers: Mobs keep moving away from them. The damage should be brough up drasticly, remember how those destroyed you in D2 when you didn't get maxed Fire resistance? B
- Head Hunters: I guess two ranged deal similar damage to three running like headless chicken melees. It's meh but it works. B
Problems/fixing: None really, apart from first rune. Those little bastards seem to tank better, or on par, as my Gargantuan, which is sad.


Passives:

Circle of Life: Way, way, way too low chance to spawn dogs. Radius is fine with few items that boost it. But there are better passives that help replenish dogs than having to kill 3 groups of small mobs for one dog. 15-20% needed to make Sac build not feel sluggish. Even with that high spawn rate, it won't render summon skill useless since you must have it to get dogs extra abilities and summon them for champ/boss fights. That is all if scaling is fixed. C

Junge Fortitude: Nice reduction, too bad everything one shots you and your pets anyway, if not that, it would give more room for error and better pet tanks, works great when leveling. B
Spiritual Attunment: Not bad, but mainly for getting more casts off your mana pool, the regen is too low. B

Gruesome Feast: Helps refuel mana and buffs your damage by huge amount, perfect! A

Bad Medicine: Like Jungle Forti, just for group, shares same problems. Great with Stinker/Plague dogs if they would work though. B

Blood Ritual: The health cost is nothing at 60 health pools (good) so it's like free life regen and 15% cheaper spells, quite nice, but usually have to be paired with Spirit Attu. A

Zombie Handler: Would be quite nice if it helped with pet durability, the bonus dog is great boost for Sac though. B

Pierce the Veil: Makes your damage more spiky between regen, I think that was the intent. Instead, it's used in Splinter-spam builds exclusivly. A

Fetish Scophants: Quite a fun one, you can get pretty nice army if you stack attack speed. Could get a boost to proc rate for slow weapons though. A

Spirit Vessel: Since Spirit Walk is must, so is this, allows you to eat one hit per 90 seconds as well. S

Rush of Essence: Now, looking at this, you might be thinking "A great passive to make a spirit based build", right? Well... you can't. First, the mana regen is really anwkard, and simple reduction would be much better. Second, until the mana cost of (unruned) Spirit Barrage is greter than primaries (that it should replace, remember it's barely stronger), the build is useless. Sure, you could take both Attunmen and Blood Ritual, but then you'd be off just sterring clear from spirit line (*cough* Dire Bats *cough*).
On a side note, there is only two options for nuke for a spirit build. TSiW Spirit Barrage with Haunt as secondary (leaves you with no aoe), or Resentful Spirit Haunt with Phantasm Spirit Barrage (but high mana cost of Haunt might now allow to use it as primary unless paired with more mana passives). C

Vision Quest: When you can keep 4 skills on CD, it allows you to spam anything as you wish. Like Zombie Bears. Or Dire Bats. I don't think we have any more spells, do we? While the passive work great, I greatly dislike the idea behind it. You have 4 spells that you don't really want to use, just keep on cooldown, and your whole focus is on spamming that one mana-heavy spell. A

Fierce Loyalty: Oh hey, a great passive for pet build. That don't scale. And get one shot. And no amount of life regen will keep your Gargantuan alive. So the only current use of it, is when you can stack so much thorns that mobs themselves will suicide on first touch on your dogs. Then you can kill 3-4 mobs each 60 second between dog summon reset. *yay* C

Grave Injustice: Interesting one, don't really help that much against champs though, and you need items with radius to make it usable. Increase base to at least 12y would make it more workable w/o supporting gear. It also don't work with some skills (Zombie Wall - Pile On), buggy. A

Tribal Rites: If you can manage to do build base on those skills and not using Vision Quest, then it's not half bad. It bugs with Devoted rune on Army and the cooldown goes from 90 (Army with rune) to 98 (Army with Rune and Tribal Rites). And it's actual cooldown, not only tooltip error (tested with stopwatch). B

Any thought/comments/disagreements? Combos or skill usage I'm missing that makes them good otherwise?

INB4 TL;DR - I expect that, but thanks for bump.